TheBanyanTree: Considering the Alternatives

[Monique Colver]

Considering the alternatives, I’m pretty happy to be at my desk today, if
likely alternatives include: a job working outside, no job, commitment to a
mental institution, death, disease, dismay, despair (the four D’s of the
apocalypse, if by apocalypse we mean something else altogether).


My program of self-actualization has had setbacks from time to time. This
is because I am, sadly, human, and therefore imperfect, and so I try to
comfort myself with that. But there is a long history of self-loathing I’m
working to overcome, and this is not something that happens overnight, or
overweek, or even overmonth. I took to self-loathing with such a zeal so
long ago that giving it up is like giving up a comforting baby blanket,
except I’m not, for all intensive purposes, a baby.


I do realize it’s all intents and purposes, and not all intensive purposes,
but I find the common misinterpretation amusing.


My condition requires hyper vigilance, it requires a strict attention to
detail, it requires careful monitoring of destructive thought patterns, and
it requires love.


Love from me, first, which is the hardest of all for me. I don’t see a lot
about me that is lovable, but that’s because my perspective is twisted, a
backwards remnant from a past I barely remember, a point of view that is
not about me at all, but which I’ve internalized to make it all about me.


Here’s the thing: It’s not about me at all. None of it is about me, and
that’s the good thing.


This writing? Is not about me, even though it is about me.


Perhaps I misspoke. This is all about me. I find that annoyingly
self-absorbed, and I dislike my focus on me. I’d much rather focus on you,
you with your winsome ways and your charming take on life. Your ability to
see things that I can’t, your generosity and even, occasionally, the
stomping of your feet when you get bent out of shape.


There’s so much of you to love.


I am grateful for the people in my life who put up with me, who help me on
this journey, who stick by me when I can’t or won’t stick by myself. Or
when I don’t. No matter how much or how little, I am grateful.


I woke up today with a really good man on one side of me and a dog with his
head on my chest, his fur in my face, and as they slept I thought of how
wonderful my life really is, and how I must somehow be a part of the reason
why. Did it get this wonderful without any effort on my part? Did it get
this way because I truly am a horrible person? Not likely.


I’m imperfect, and that’s okay. I’m not reprehensible, and I’m not nearly
as boring as I pretend to be. I’m just another person, living my life, and
trying to do the best I can with it.





M